The power of your mind is mightier than you may realize.
The heart chakra, or anahata chakra, is the circulating energy field or vortex located at heart level along your spine. One of the seven chakras, it is most strongly associated with unconditional love and self love.
The heart chakra is considered the portal connected to your nerve bundles and internal organs. It’s one of the energy centers where you have the ability to manifest, feel, and radiate different types of love and compassion for yourself, others, and the environment.
While there is no English word that can truly explain what anahata means, it’s been said to roughly translate to something along the lines of unhurt, unstruck, or unbeaten.
In the Vedas, the oldest scriptures or texts of the Vedic Sanskrit tradition of Hinduism, Anahata encompasses the image of unstruck sound.
Try sitting for a moment with the image of unstruck sound. What comes up for you? Hold this in your heart as you continue reading.
Your seven primary chakras, composed of both lower and upper chakras, are 7 separate energy wheels along your spine working together to create your overall sense of wellbeing and holistic wellness.
Chakras are an ancient concept of explaining human connection to universal or cosmic energy and whole body and mind health. Chakras have roots dating back to Hindiusm in India in 1500 and 500 BCE (before common era).
When one chakra, like the heart chakra, is not in balance with the others, you can feel its effects. A heart chakra blockage may be felt physically in the area (e.g., chest pains, heartburn, heart ache, heart palpitations or irregular beats). Others may feel effects on their mental health or spiritual health. The way the heart chakra acts and is experienced is different for everyone.
The chakra system exists outside of conventional Western medicine. This means these signs are based on old knowledge and wisdom passed down along blood lines and through oral histories and traditions, rather than scientific studies or reports.
A blocked heart chakra can result in a depletion or draining of energy from that space in your chest along your spine and have different effects on your body and mind, says yoga medicine therapeutic specialist Diane Malaspina, PhD.
So if you’ve been feeling sluggish, tired, burned out, or just generally spent lately, there could be a chakra imbalance behind it. The thing to keep in mind is that your chakras, as energy fields, are by definition always changing.
This means a blocked chakra or an imbalance in any of the seven primary chakras can be readily changed whenever you so desire.
Malaspina says your chakras can be overactive and have too much energy, or be underactive, the result of blocked energy. Overactive heart chakra signs include:
Underactive heart chakra signs
Your chakras are connected to yogic traditions. Yoga itself has roots in Hinduism as well as other religions including Buddhism and Jainism. As anyone who has ever practiced any tradition or branch of yoga knows there’s a wide variety of poses to work different parts of your body and mind.
You can find certain poses are made for balancing your chakra system and other yoga poses may be focused on a specific chakra. Yoga poses for balancing your heart chakra are:
There are also yoga/meditations made for balancing your heart chakra or for opening your heart chakra. For more, search heart chakra meditation on YouTube or stream on a channel like Gaia or a meditation app like Calm.
Try this simple exercise for opening your heart chakra:
You will find that balancing your heart chakra on a frequent basis and listening to when your inner voice or crown chakra signals you to practice yoga and heart chakra meditation will help you manifest a more loving relationship not only with yourself, but also restore balance with others, and the ever changing energy forces all around you.
After these balancing sessions, be sure to get plenty of rest and hydrate to facilitate healing.
Crystal healing is an alternative medicine practice with its modern roots based on traditional concepts from Asian cultures. Some examples include the:
From these traditional knowledge reserves we see how crystal energies can be harnessed to provide perceived healing power potential.
In this way, crystals compliment our natural ability to change.
Crystals that can help in healing the heart chakra and balancing your life force are used in ritual healing to open the heart or clear energy blockages in the fourth chakra area. These stones or gems are said to have the properties necessary to spark heart chakra balancing.
Examples include:
Your crystals don’t have to be shaped like a heart. You can choose crystals in whatever form (raw, tumbled, shaped) that you feel most attracted toward and connected to. This is why choosing crystals in-person is the best because you can feel which crystals are meant to be yours.
If you’re shopping online, look for ethical sourcing and don’t hesitate to ask a lot of questions and think outside the box! Trust your crown chakra’s intuition. When it comes to balancing your chakras, there is no one better to choose your crystal than you!
This means if you see a crystal that’s not on the above list but it speaks to your heart, or you feel a certain unspeakable connection to the crystal, you can use it to help balance your heart chakra.
Whether or not you believe in the healing powers of chakras, yoga, and meditation, doesn’t change the fact that you were born with the innate power and potential to create change. You are the living manifestation of what constant change represents. If you feel like your heart needs opening, expanding, or just some self love and self care, you’re 100% correct.
Ask your inner voice what they need in order to heal on a spiritual level. Use the methods that have been passed down by previous generations to harness the power of your mind’s guidance of your heart’s power.
If you are experiencing physical or mental health symptoms associated with your heart, seek medical support from a trained professional. Crystals are not meant to be substitutes for medical care, but compliments to our holistic wellness routines.